The rate and causes of neonatal mortality in Hamadan province, 2012

Considering the neonatal mortality rate is a marker of health in community, thus this study was performed to assess the rate and main causes of neonatal death in Hamadan province.

In this cross-sectional study, 333 died infants in the Hamadan province were studied. Data has been collected by the registration of infants' deaths software of Hamadan University of medical sciences and the data of death of babies at home has been collected from their records. The data was analyzed by SPSS-16 software using Chi-Square and Fisher's exact tests.

Of the 32113 live births in the Hamadan province in 2012, 333 cases of neonatal deaths were occurred. The most frequent causes of neonatal death were respiratory distress syndrome %55.5, sepsis %10.2, Asphyxia %8.7, congenital anomalies %6.6 and DIC %5.7 and the lest frequent causes were hypoglycemia %0.3 and convalesce %0.9. The relationship between birth weight (p=0.002), gestational age (p=0.001), infant age (p<0.001), maternal age at delivery (p<0.001) and congenital abnormality (p<0.001) with the cause of death were found. But the relationship between mode of delivery, infant sex, history of drug use by mother, mother medical history, number of pregnancies with the cause of death were not found (p>0.05).

According to the findings, main causes of infant death rate were respiratory distress syndrome, Sepsis, Asphyxia and congenital anomalies. So for prevention of infant death, care plan for prevention and treatment of these problems should be performed.